Pandora Progress Update

I have at long last managed to finish off Candy, and along with have made progress on Kade and Pandora herself. Just today, before the rain set in, I managed to get the Teddy sprayed, so I will hopefully be able to get the entire crew done in the next week or so! (After that, I think I'll go back to Flames of War for a bit: try to get my LRDG and SAS crews finished up.)

Without further ado, progress on Pandora!

You can see the green line no her skirt where, despite my previous attempts to fill the gap, it remained anyway. Luckily, a little more liquid green stuff after I saw the gap, and it should be fine now.

Her hair was also causing me problems: I have a red that for some reason refuses to go as bright as in the bottle when actually applied (Vallejo flat red), but the Bloodletter red glaze from GW really brings the colour up to a good pure red! (Plus, adds that fresh glossy well-washed look!) I would normally make the 'red' a more natural redhead colour, but as with her skin tone, I wanted Pandora's appearance to be slightly unnatural, and so I went with a good strong red.

I also have managed to finish off Kade. The only thing not painted in this photograph is his hair, which was applied afterwards. Oddly, Kade went really quickly painting-wise, since he's essentially just three colours: Skin, diaper, and blade. (And eyes, I guess, so four...)

The skin here is also meant to be slightly eerie, but much paler still than Candy. It makes the colour scale lighter as the Woes appear older.

I like the new look for Kade, even if he is slightly oversized. He's more baby-like, sitting on his butt rather than stalking forward with his teddy bear. His overall countenance also seems more baby-like: Less manic glee over killing, and more brooding in a way, eerily enough, I've seen too many infants do.. >.>

And finally, Candy herself, finished until I inevitably find something I missed:

I must say I love this model. The slightly in-turned feet, the two-handed cutesy hold on the basket, the placid, slightly pouted face, the elaborate hair.. She's also a ton of fun to paint. Previously I posted the dress that inspired her lace, and now she has her hair settled. I picked Purple ribbons for her hair for contrast with the strawberry blonde, itself achieved by layering up from Leather Brown with a light wash of red at about the halfway point. I will likely keep her eyes blank white, as with Kade.

 I was looking up possible Victorian dress colour schemes and came across an odd one that mixed green and purple. With the subtle red of her hair, and green being a predominant colour in any Pandora crew, I had to try it for her waistline ribbon. White would have mixed with the lace, yellow would have been too straightforward, and the acid-strength of the green adds a kind of eerie quality to her outfit in general.

Next, I'm working on Pandora's dress. It has three distinct layers which I want to bring out more strongly than is currently represented on her illustration. I'll do a dark, slinky black-to-green for her slip, translucent where her legs push against the fabric, followed by the midtone green of her dress, and topped by (possibly faded) black for her cape. All of this will hopefully have little bizarre designs and swirls in the highlighting, unless when I try it, it looks bad. More soon!

Let Me Show You What's In My Box...

I've started working on Pandora's crew a bunch. I love these models. The poses are so much stronger, the detail is fantastic, and in a lot of cases they've cleaned up the look of the models as well.

First up is Pandora herself. I wanted the skin-tone for her to be dusky, but also slightly creepy. I mixed my first brown layer with a bit of purple, and highlighted up from there, so she seems just slightly off in a way that's hard to put your finger on.

Then, I highlighted up to my proper skin tone, before giving her makeup. Green eyeshadow and lipstick adds to the unsettling quality of her skin and look. I'm debating how to do her clothes, though, so she ended up sitting for a while, with me debating tones, detail level, patterns...

Next I decided to work on Candy. Her skin treatment was similar, but I went far paler overall. With her dress I wanted to be not the goth black of her new look, nor the bright pink of before per se. My fiancee came up with the idea of a plum dress, which worked marvelously. I was also lucky enough to find an illustration of a dress that is almost exactly hers!

I wanted to do the white lacy frill around it, so first I painted that lower hem of her dress in grey (as with the wide collar) and then carefully painted an almost-white grey over top that, before accentuating the highlight sections:

Starting with just the basic pattern as you go around will let stuff dry, and allow you to touch up as needed.

(Sorry for photo blurriness) eventually I had a nice lacey pattern. I'll likely go back and really accentuate the lines once I know I'm done the rest, and am not worrying about stuff rubbing off.

The gloves were painted before I realized in her illustrations they're not supposed to be, but I prefer the look of her having nice cute white lace gloves. The wrist bangles will still be a good dark black though.

Also around this time the new Teddy came out, and I had to get one to accompany Kade. The new model is head and shoulders above the old one. Both in physical size and design. My one issue is something that is also 'wrong' with the Pandora spirits as well, and is an issue it seems with a lot of model makers. I'm tempted to call it the Miley Syndrome. Why does everything have to have tongues sticking out?! It's not terrifying, it's not even truly creepy, it's just goofy! On the Teddy, the old model's row of needle-fangs was just all danger. Whenever I see one with a giant snake of a tongue sticking out, I just picture them chomping accidentally on it!

That said, the new plastic would also provide much more (and much easier) conversion opportunity for those who want multiple Teddies; wholly separate head, head in two parts right along the jawline, and arms that are actually split at the shoulder combine to make this a model with great potential for modifcation.

My final photo for this version is the Teddy in dry-run assemble. I'll have to fill in a bunch of mold lines, and convert the mouth so his tongue is properly inside, but otherwise it's a sweet model.